many question the sudden resignation of pope benedict the sixteenth shock waves reverberate throughout the catholic world. forces reclaim the city of we'll bring you a firsthand account from the city off a surprise attack by militants almost spoils french claims of a victorious campaign. eighteen coal miners die in an underground blast in russia's republic. still looking for one possible survivor.

live from our studios here in moscow this is. the vatican has announced that pope benedict the sixteenth will step down on february twenty eighth citing old age the eighty five year old who would become the first head of the catholic church to resign from the post in six centuries. or has more. well it's described by one cardinal as a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky it certainly caught some of benedict's most senior advisers on the hope his spokes person said that it being left flabbergasted by the news that the pope will be stepping down at the end of the month now benedict is eighty five years old obviously not a young man but the cardinals knew that when they elected him and he was supposed

to be there for a lot longer than this i think they would have thought it's not unprecedented but it's not really done not often in fact the last time a pope stepped down was nearly six hundred years ago it's certainly not been an easy ride it's not been the longest papacy just under eight years but in not time is certainly being plenty of drama no nice includes one of the one of the reasons that benedict said that he has to step down as he thought his age made him physically and in some cases mentally unable to deal with the everyday life of being the pope in the modern world and one of the series of scandals that we've seen involve the so-called vatileaks similar to wiki leaks a series of documents that were distributed online which well apparently showed a c.v. a series of shady dealings done by the vatican this type of thing of course not something your average eighty five year old has to deal with but they included some quite serious allegations including the fact that the vatican colluded with silvio

berlusconi's government in italy to try and get pressure taken off the church of rome for paying taxes on properties which it owned those also list that was published of well less than savory clients for the vatican bank which included some people alleged to be sicilian mafia bosses and of course one of the major scandals that is will be remembered for benedict's papacy concerns child abuse and his previous. this job before he became pope he was essentially regarded as the john paul of seconds papal bull dog he was the defender of the doctrine of full faith and not role he is accused of covering up sexual abuse scandals all around the world but also here in germany in fact in recent times there's been further controversy over this as the church here in germany canceled an investigation into

child abuses that range but to the 1940's and stop that investigation apparently according to the man who was conducting it because they weren't happy with what would be made public so there's certainly been controversy and it will be something that's picked over for a long time to come after benedict steps down at the end of this month well let's get more on the pope's unexpected resignation from elizabeth oldfield director of playoffs or religion and society think tank thanks for joining us here on r.t. today i have to ask you are there any indications that the pope may have been pushed out i suppose as a result of any behind the scenes power struggles now there's nothing like that we think coming up there obviously will be conspiracy theories around this time it's certainly one of our i think favorite past times globally but the happy indications that this was coming i think the bolt from the blue narrative is possibly have at least leading in twenty ten book pope benedict indicated that he thought those who

felt they could no longer take on the role could no longer fulfill the role should probably step down and you know how for challenges he faced i mean there's very many people who are not that surprised oh yes he mentioned challenges the challenges there i mean allegations of corruption child of paedophilia money laundering all these things have marred his tenure haven't they. any more sensitive apart from all that anything positive come out of it. yes i think there's a few things that you could point to some really big positives he's been known as a real intellectual force he's written some very serious and cyclicals three major and cyclicals which are really kind of letters to the faithful including carriage house environ tartar which has been very very significant for catholic social thought and certainly in the u.k. that kind of catholic social thought has become very influential newspaper texas seen as having great integrity and being a great resource certainly after the financial crisis so you can see our serious

thinker as pope whose ideas and whose dissemination of ideas have been positively for lent you know a lot of articles as a new pope will be elected we think by the end of march or early days now of course but any ideas who a successor could be no it's almost impossible to tell certainly as someone who's watched our american church go through a similar process that sounds like a wonderfully speedy turnaround so we're very impressed with that efficiency there's lots of cardinals who people are putting forth as possible candidates there's some very steady ones from italy i think what would be interesting is if you sure a shift away from the european center for the vatican and towards one of the cardinals that are based in africa or in south america that would really reflect the shift of power is the wrong word but the shift of global christianity towards the south towards the southern hemisphere where really the majority of catholics now are so if that did happen then what steps do you think the new pope would have to take to try and what

a void some of the problems that have plagued his predecessor. i think he's got a big job on his hands he would be wanting to restore credibility for the catholic church particularly in the west in western europe following the scandals it also have on his hands a bit of a challenge in south america because you're seeing a massive growth in pentecostalism in an area that was traditionally heavily catholic and i think the unity the bringing together the conservative the more progressive forces in catholicism which have felt possibly like they're straining a little bit it seems over the last seven to ten years they need to be brought together and the next pope will be facing that problem rick perry field director for yourself for joining us here on r.t. today thank you very much. french and italian troops have regained control of care after is the most militants launched a surprise attack what is normal is most populous city authorities say three civilians were killed during sunday's fighting this comes after recent claims by

france that the military campaign is almost complete and as local correspondent gonzalo want to reports the joint forces are struggling to flu secure the region still occupied by insurgents. the situation in mali is obviously going to have a gruesome ending there are more than enough indications of that last friday the country was shaken by the very first terrorist attack in its history according to the witness report of what was carried out by a fifteen year old suicide bomber of arab descent the bomber was the only one killed after the detonation of a few hours later responsibility for the attack was claimed by the motor watch jihadists one thing to remember here is that this is a vast desert territory and therefore it is very difficult to control this attack is just another example confirming that despite the news reports of the french army having taken over gal timbuktu in the dow there is still a long way to go before jihadists are ousted from the country at least in severe

artie's crew was given access to the civil defense camps where volunteers and civilians are preparing to fight against. the n.f.l. and they can get down to core a local pro-government militia movements that account for a total of two thousand eight hundred operatives but do not support the strategy chosen by the french in mali and joining forces in fighting the terrorists completely love we share the same goals but what they did was a really bad service to us all there was no really about the army itself al-qaeda had been operating on mali and territory for a number of years now they have all of those and they keep getting more by kidnapping white people for ransom insurance pays them to have their citizens returned and then the terrorists have cash to buy weapons and if you talk about al-qaeda there's no way the army can fight it because that she it's terrorism in action going to find out is that those paramilitary who know the terrain well say fighting a war they cannot take part in is meaningless one thing all these paramilitary

groups have in common is their patriotism and zeal to protect their country and drive away the narco terrorists but this is a losing fight given the financial resources and ammunition stock they have. put out. but i'm ready to go it all lengths i'm raised to give my life right now to save my family out there in the north because we're all here have family see i believe france will still be its attacks for a while or and the french troops leave they will start all over again because the criminals are still out there hiding them on the civilians not all of them have been caught really need to be given the mandate to complete this mission and our own we're ready for it only we can do it because we grew up in the north we know the terrain and the people so we're the only ones who can stop that which was to find them in the villages and the desert where we know every corner and every part of land. overall well that you had this forces are taking over their land kidnapping people and using suicide bombers to fight for the cause of the civilian

population that means the country's most vulnerable. by ongoing modern conflict was among the topics artie's got it if you can discuss it with russia's ambassador to the un patani churkin the full interview well there are forty five g.m.t. but it's also available a few anytime you like on our website r.t. dot com here's a quick preview. question of spring was the dramatic events in libya. we're in the course of the crisis of course lots of weapons were brought into libya and there was a lot of there were lots of weapons of as it is but still many more weapons were brought into libya during the recent hearings which then secretary of state clinton had in the house of representatives one of the congressman said that they had information that cut out with a wink and nod as he put it from the united states brought in twenty thousand tons of weapons into libya and you know twenty thousand tons you can arm is small terrorist army and so on of course this is exactly what has happened in mali

definitely we see a spillover from the libyan crisis to to a neighboring country and most likely the spillover has affected other places as well for instance it may well be there are many indications to that effect that the terrorist attack. in the jury it had something to do i mean close to the libyan border also had some sort of. connection in terms of people maybe weapons there is an agent from libya participating in that attack. and so they had few this time more tension in cairo as egypt's opposition bows to bring supporters to the streets for most fridays looking two years since the fall of yesterday was a new back. we explain why environmentalist in ukraine are outraged by the

authorities decision to go ahead with a multi billion dollar against project story a few minutes after a short break. he

. welcome back eighteen people have been killed by me thane explosion in a mine in russia's northern ca meet republic that's according to the emergency services who also say one person is still missing well a. hundred meters below the surface more than two hundred fifty miners were underground. has more. i know that at least two hundred forty two people have been evacuated from the mine immediately after the explosion that is the safety that

created at one point there were several people who were missing looks like most of them have been recovered unfortunately other than that we also know that immediately already a program has been set up in order to help financially the families of those up in the loss to their relatives say in the blast and that's it compensation should be mounted to the intervals and that is roughly sixty six thousand dollars. for them to recall as of the last was between the gas explosion and in the mine you have to mention here that there has been no fire immediately following the blast and that could be said to be a fortunate thing because otherwise of course we'd be looking at a death toll would be significantly higher there has been a criminal case launched also into the possible breach of security measures at the mine blast this is this is looking like the biggest in terms of death toll. mine accident over the past year and russia. suicide rates are

soaring in the u.k. with money worries pushing many over the edge cuts to mental health services and aggressive debt collecting are cited by experts as. the situation. one mother who lost her child to debt dispair. for the last year and a half thorn has been coming to terms with the tragic death of a son aged just twenty three toby took his own life riding his spinal words on the back of a bank statement after racking up a three thousand pound overdraft and a five thousand pounds student debt it was just the shock this wasn't fun one but had a history of depression or mental illness or even had come across as being down or depressed you know in the last few weeks months of his life if anything he came across the someone that you know didn't have a care in the world following his death and became the trustee for the charity piracy which aims to prevent suicide among young people from

a home in cornwall she even runs her own blog giving advice but it's a battle her charity and similar ones around the u.k. are struggling to win suicide is on the increase according to latest figures accounting for six thousand deaths between twenty ten and twenty eleven a rise of seven percent so why the increase while an inquest ruled that toby's financial problems were a contributing factor to his suicide but it's nice a bit amazing u.k. economy is partly to blame for the recent deaths nationwide areas of high unemployment such as camden here in london are among those worst affected and it's a problem compounded by cutbacks in mental health services the double whammy effect of the recession is that the people are becoming more distressed more anxious and therefore more at risk of wanting to take their own lives at the same time whether sterrett and cuts means that we have fewer psychiatric beds that the crisis care

isn't there and if that isn't enough the growth of same day loan companies and intimidating debt collectors are adding to the pressures people are feeling according to researchers brighton university we have some very very good regulations to protect people. it's problematic let thinks that it debt collection however is that particularly well it's just because these practices are still. in response the u.k. government has announced plans to crack down on aggressive bailiff's from next year late night visits will not be allowed and restrictions will be put on what property can be ceased they are also spending over a million pounds on research as part of a suicide strategy plan but that is only one very small step in the right direction for someone like. there's no easy answer i mean one thing i've learned more about through thought than i ever wanted to know is that i've done a lot of reading and rethought and i think strangely complex hopefully in time only

the trend will go down with what we need to be the mall andrew farmer for r.t. london but we have more stories and pictures for you on our website r.t. dot com is a quick glimpse of what we have a lined up there for you today u.s. president barack obama looks set to restart a key focus of his politics nuclear weapons reduction possibly tenting russia with a potential big money saving more web site. also that know for sure what we do tomorrow it's not that a u.s. defense star may be able to help it says it can help predict your future steps leading behavior despite collecting social network data why not more online. with ukraine refusing to pay gas problems a recent seven billion dollar gas bill authorities in kiev are working on investing

western companies to explore its shale gas reserves however the controversial method proposed to boost the country's coffers isn't going down well with environmentalists. explains. it was described as the day of ukraine's energy independence when in november last year he signed a one billion dollar agreement with a spanish utility to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the black sea coast delight quickly turned into dismay when it emerged that the man signing the deal had nothing to do with the company three months later ukraine's leaders were shaking hands again this time with boiled dutch shell having signed a real deal to explore and develop the country's potentially he would shale gas reserves reportedly the third largest in europe for. the expectation is about eight to ten billion cubic meters of gas production per year and the highest is up to about twenty two twenty five once it's operational we will

strive to fully meet our domestic energy needs and to even become an exporter. this is definitely sweet music to for years ukraine has been striving to reduce its reliance on. russia especially now when gas. was seven billion dollars for violating gas agreements this project is definitely good we would pay between one hundred fifty to one hundred eight dollars per cubic meter of gas in the four hundred fifty dollars we're now paying to gas problem but if everything is so promising why are people out in force against the shale gas initiative. the second should know if not worse for years ukraine has often been divided on many different issues from perception of history to the official number of state languages and then you shale gas initiatives are no exception even sworn political enemies hardline nationalists and communists have put their differences aside and spoken

out against. the opposition even proposed a bill prohibiting the exploration and extraction of shale gas the matter of. information on how the gas display. between shell chevron and ukrainian companies this classified it is still not clear if it's going to be profitable because the companies don't keer the most harmful reach of the environment but political battles of size ecologists are the most concerned with a potential threat from the shale gas program. it could lead to a full blown strophe but whenever they speak out the pro-government media labels them as agents of gas. usually and different camels that extract more gas from the rocks and so the underground system which provides fresh drinking water is completely destroyed this water is a strategic ecological resource and when one spoil it the area becomes practically non-viable. but even in the most optimistic scenario ukraine may see its own shale

gas filling its pipes only in a decade from now ecologists fish against shale gas and simple just that the potential environmental impact from its action needs to be researched and assessed before drilling begins they have already sent a letter to the president the question is whether those at the top will be willing to listen let's see russia. reporting from kiev in ukraine. egyptian security forces are on high alert off the country's opposition announced mass rallies to mark two years since the fall of former president hosni mubarak over a dozen parties have declared their intent to march on top of a square and the presidential palace to step up pressure on currently than one hundred missing well president morsi protesters are accusing president seale betraying the revolution. kidnapping and pressure several egyptian regions are currently in a state of emergency after deadly clashes are about to cross the country. on the

first year of the uprising i was in spokesman ahmed hollering says creating a coalition government is the only way to quell the unrest. people are going to this. they are going on the streets willingly they don't really need any opposition calls for due process because the whole country is in a standstill there's nothing moving forward because there is no real administration blessing the people's needs and the people demand the actual anger in the street so the only solution that i can see and any sane person can see that the opposition the rebels the brotherhood and all the all the different political factions to be in a court of government that would be the only solution and the only way out because at that moment this government will take responsibility for any reform that's going to be as one of the happening of the country but the idea of just excluding everybody out of the government post revolution country in

a country that's acting calling for democracy when there is no real parliament in session that can hold the president or the government accountable to the failures of administering the country and then refusing to have a quality of government that's just a call for chaos point a national news in brief for you now and at least one person has been killed and three others wounded after a gunman opened fire in a courthouse in the u.s. state of delaware the attacker entered the building and fired at least five shots one of the victims is thought to be the wife of the attacker another man has been confirmed as a security officer at the courthouse the exact number of victims as yet remains unclear more that as it comes in here knotty. the government and opposition in bahrain have launched a new round of reconciliation talks the first such meeting in two years of political crisis campaigners are calling on the government to deal with police brutality and perceived discrimination while the opposition has cast doubts on the

intentions of the talks saying they're just a bluff to calm the unrest activists say there's too much power concentrated in the hands of the sunni monarchy. turkish media says at least seven people have been killed and dozens injured after a car bomb exploded at a crossing on the turkish syrian border explosives were reportedly packed into a car carrying humanitarian aid most of those killed are said to be syrian nationals dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the scene the area has been a focus of violence in the almost two year long battle between syrian rebels and government forces. and an indian official has resigned following a deadly stampede at a railway station killed thirty six hindu programs instant reportedly occurred after railway officials announced a last minute change of what tens of millions gathered on the banks of the ganges

river to take a dip walk in a coal mine are religious festival held every twelve years. or shortly in r.t. people have ellen his guests to discuss the ongoing strife in africa and foreign interests there i think crosstalk me away in just a couple of minutes stay with us. some countries want oil but their kid stuff who needs oil. when you could secure the world's largest supply of truck a soda located exclusively in sweden and meeting sweden for absolutely no logical reason is a possible you say well supreme commander of the swedish armed forces general sphere guru and son must have watched red dawn too many times because he thinks the

russians are a common general durance and declared that if invaded by russia sweden wouldn't be able to last a week against the onslaught therefore sweden must immediately join nato he said that currently it is not quite possible to invade sweden but due to the two thousand and eight war with georgia it is possible for russia to somehow push through established european borders bring their forces up to sweden gates putting the generals country in danger but guess what according to your own council of the european union georgia started the war so by that logic if the two thousand and one with georgia is the example of the future then don't kill russian peacekeeping troops and you'll have nothing to worry about but general goran so also made the point that president putin is rearming the russian army hinting at a threat of being heavily armed to defend yourself is a bad scary thing then joining up with nato seems to be pretty hypocritical if the people of sweden want to join nato well that is their choice but they shouldn't be tricked into having their taxpayers pay for their sons to die in afghanistan based

on totally bogus arguments that make no sense but that's just my opinion. speak your language. programs in documentaries in arabic in school here in the. recruiting for the world talks six of the r.p. interviews intriguing story. arabic to find out because it arabic. so.